1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to garden shears, and more particularly to a garden shears that is capable of limiting a maximum opening range and that requires less operational strength.
2. Description of the Related Art
More and more people enjoy having plants in their living environment; therefore, garden tools are becoming increasingly popular. Garden shears are used for trimming plants. Please refer to FIG. 8. A prior art garden shears has a metal lever 60, a first member 70 and a second member 80. The metal lever 60 has a first pivot joint 61, a blade 62 and an arm 63 having a second pivot joint 64. The second pivot joint 64 and the first pivot joint 61 are separated from each other by a predetermined distance. The first member 70 is pivoted onto the first pivot joint 61 and connected to the metal bar lever. The first member 70 further has an extended jaw 71 coupled with the blade 62 and is able to cut an object placed in a space formed by the extended jaw 71. The first member 70 further has an extended arm 72 and a first fan-shaped gear 73 disposed between the extended jaw 71 and the extended arm 72. The second member 80 has an extending portion 81 and a second fan-shaped gear 82. The second member 80 is pivoted onto the second pivot joint 64 and connected to the metal lever 60 such that the first and second fan-shaped gears 73, 82 are engaged with each other for relative movement.
However, the prior art structure has the following drawbacks: 1. The first member 70 and the second member 80 are both disposed on the same side of the metal lever 60; when the cutting motion is performed and a counterforce is generated, the counterforce is concentrated at the engaging area of the first member 70 and the second member 80 and is not evenly dispersed over both sides; therefore, the cutting motion is affected by the unbalanced stresses and is made more difficult. 2. The first member 70 and the second member 80 are simply pivoted together and are unable to restrict each other. Therefore, when the first and second members 70, 80 are respectively rotated in opposite directions during the cutting operation, the first and second members 70, 80 can easily become accidentally separated by a maximum angle, which is not usable because the blade 62 requires a proper cutting angle between the object. Furthermore, when the first and second members 70, 80 are too far apart, more effort is required to close them which is very inconvenient for users.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide an improved garden shears to mitigate and/or obviate the aforementioned problems.